


there's no way

by minttobe_treehill



Category: SKAM (Italy)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, i hate these tags so much, so i'll avoid them for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 13:27:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17746730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minttobe_treehill/pseuds/minttobe_treehill
Summary: Elia and Filippo met during Martino's Christmas party. And the rest is history (or so they say).





	there's no way

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a 2k one shot meant to make me feel excited about writing again - and who knows where it might end up (I have some ideas, so hopefully I'll manage to post more chapters?). They have my heart, so I'm not regretting it.
> 
> Title from Lauv & Julia Michaels' 'There's No Way'.

**Chapter I.** _**We knew someday that we would have regrets, but we just ignored them the night we met**_

“Marti, just shut up”

Elia starts laughing along with Gio, almost making Niccolò laugh with them - who is still trying not to.

Luca had been going on and on about not being successful with girls for almost half an hour, to the point Martino had decided to start rambling about how it’s not necessary to have somebody or to be experienced, how young they all still were, how much time they had ahead… And well, Luca snapped.

“Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean—”

“It’s not because you’re gay, it’s because you’re having sex on a daily basis with that hot guy over there!” – he almost yells, pointing to Niccolò, who’s resting on the door frame of Martino’s living room – “so you’re not allowed to talk about this”

The whole scene is hilarious, from Luchino’s tantrum to the way Martino blushes and tries to concentrate on the tv, definitely regretting his decision to speak. Elia’s stomach hurts from laughing that much and Gio doesn’t look much better. Nico, on the other hand, ends up reaching out to Martino and sitting next to him on the couch, moving his head from side to side while looking at Luca – like a dad telling his son to apologize.

There’s no tension in the room, it’s all a joke and they knew. Still, Luchino ends up crushing Martino on the couch, hugging him by the shoulders and asking for forgiveness – “I’m horny and upset, don’t hold it against me, man!”.

Half an hour later, Martino’s place starts filling up with people. The boys had been at his place for hours – and even when Gio, Luchino and Elia himself had reached his place, Nico was already there, helping Martino with the Christmas decorations. The girls start putting up some lights around the place and setting up the table, while Elia and Luca busy themselves with the Christmas tree. Gio, Martino and Nico end up in the kitchen, but don’t seem to be making such a good job with the food by how much they’re laughing and dropping stuff.

When it seems like everybody is there, the doorbell rings and Martino goes to open the door while the girls get up laughing. Elia turns around and sees Eleonora running to the girls, hugging them impossibly closer. He goes back to the Christmas tree, busying himself with a red bow that just has to be perfectly placed.

“Man, have you seen the Argentinian?”

“Are you asking me if she’s here or is this just your way of starting a conversation about how pretty she is?”

“What is it with all of you today?!”

Elia starts laughing, “I’m just fucking with you. Go talk to her”

“Yeah, right, like it’s that easy”, Luchino says, picking on the lights around the tree.

Elia shrugs. He has been nervous about talking to people before, seeing someone attractive and feeling completely overwhelmed by their beauty (even if it was just physical) that felt nerve wracking to just think about approaching them. But it’s all in the head, all lies, thinking that someone is automatically intimidating just because they’re subjetifically more attractive than you. The first step is just a hello, it’s not that hard.

“Want me to—?”

“No”, Luchino says, with a stern face

Elia smirks and wiggles his eyebrows – that girl is indeed pretty. Luchino bumps Elia’s hand while he’s still working on the bow, and it goes flying all the way across the room.

“I’ve been working on that for ten minutes”, he says with a serious expression.

Now’s Luca who shrugs his shoulders and goes back to arranging the lights.

Elia sighs and turns around, walking through Martino’s place, looking for the stupid red bow. He bumps into a couple of classmates and even people he’s not sure he has ever seen in his life and apologizes – he even asks Silvia if she’s seen a red bow to what she frowns, laughs and says no with her head. Damn it.

He crouches down to keep looking for the bow, to the point he almost ends up under the table the girls have been setting up. How the fuck did Luchino make the b—

“I think you’re looking for this”

He hears a deep voice above him and kicks his head on the table, taken aback by it. “Shit!”

There’s a muffled laugh and Elia can only see a pair of feet covered with blue socks and the end of dark grey trousers.

He manages to lift his head properly and look at the person in front of him, getting away from the table.

It’s a guy. Tall, skinny, with blondish hair and dark roots. He’s holding the end of the bow between his thumb and index, like it’s burning him. There’s a light smile on his face, no teeth, just a curved line that makes the ring on his bottom lip stand out. When he starts laughing – clearly embarrassed by the weird situation – Elia is suddenly aware he’s still on the floor, with his knees pressed against the hard floor and the palms of his hands sweaty, resting on the top of his thighs, threatening to stain his jeans. He feels like he’s seen that boy before, but he can’t really picture when or where.

“Yes! Yeah, yes!”, he says, clearly louder than expected, finally getting up and taking the stupid bow. “Yes, thank you”

“It literally went flying across the room”, blonde guy says with a smile on his face. He ends up pressing his teeth against his bottom lip, crushing the lip ring and Elia feels weird inside. He should stop staring.

“Yeah”, he says, nodding. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying, but okay.

Tall blonde guy nods to him and disappears, Elia following him with his eyes wherever he’s going. He loses him between a group of classmates, even though Martino’s living room isn’t that big.

Elia bites the inside of his right cheek and looks at the little red bow like it’s the cause of all his problems. He feels the sweat in his armpits, his head light. He knows the feeling – it isn’t the first time Elia has felt this kind of attraction towards a boy, and at this point he kind of has come to terms with it. He had kissed boys before - well, one boy, months after wanking to gay porn for the first time. It wasn’t a practical discovery, definitely not the perfect _bisexual awakening_ , but he has also learned to make peace with that.

That guy was drunk and Elia had pretended to be. He wasn’t much taller than him, dark hair, more muscly. Didn’t even know what age he was - Elia was about to be 17. It was a messy kiss in the bathroom of a club Elia shouldn’t have even been given permission to enter. It was exciting, hot, new – scary. They were both a bit embarrassed after it happened, so they said goodbye and never saw each other again. Elia stayed in the stall for 15 minutes, yelling at three different guys and a girl who knocked on their door to enter. After that, he left the club almost running, went home and locked himself in his room without giving any explanation to his parents, watching tv on the living room.

Now it feels like a long time ago, even though no much time has passed since that night. After that, Elia has found a lot of guys attractive, but it’s also been something quiet, a little thought in the back of his head; it has never made him nervous or insecure. Who’s that guy, anyway?

He goes back to the tree, crossing the living room, but Luca is already gone from their spot. He frowns and starts looking everywhere, not really knowing where to stand anymore. He bites his upper lip and decides to go back to placing the bow on the tree – it’s a much easier task than thinking he might bump into blue socks guy again.

-*-

“Nico, mate…”, Elia says, already regretting tasting the zabaione.

An hour later, all five of them are in the kitchen. Marti, Gio and Nico have already finished whatever they were doing – which turned out to be zabaione. Martino and Gio aren’t bad at cooking, though no one could say the same about Niccolò.

“It’s not that bad”, Luca says, taking another spoonful.

Elia raises his eyebrows and opens his eyes, looking at him like he can’t believe what he’s saying. He looks at Gio and Martino; both of them look at him for a second and then look away – of course, Gio is the nicest human being in the universe (too good for his own good, if you ask him) and Martino is… A bit biased, to say the least. Nico is just laughing, he knows.

“What’s cookin’ good lookin’?”, someone says.

Tall blonde guy approaches them, tickling Martino on the ribs, making him laugh and squirm. Elia shoves his already sweaty hands into the front pockets of his jeans, his eyes focusing on the green mug on the counter behind Niccolò.

“You don’t wanna know”, Marti says, what makes Gio, Luca and Elia himself burst out laughing. Nico looks at him with a frown, but he’s definitely trying not to smile. Martino grabs him by the shoulders and squeezes before pressing his nose in Nico’s right shoulder, smiling to himself.

“Let’s just say cooking isn’t my strongest skill”, Niccolò says, pressing his lips together.

“Yeah, let’s just say that”, Elia says, not even looking at him.

Martino keeps laughing and nudging Niccolò until he says, “Oh, you haven’t met, have you?”

Elia looks up just then, seeing Martino look at him but also at Luca and Gio.

“We have, we have, we met one day when I went to his place to pick up Eva”, Gio says, nodding and landing his eyes on his own feet.

There’s some tenderness in the way he finishes the sentence. It seems like everybody picks up on it but decide to let it go. Elia wonders why everybody seems to know who this guy is and he still has no idea where he’s seen him before.

Luchino breaks the silence, “we haven’t met, I’m Luca”, he says, getting closer to him and offering him his right hand. Elia watches the way the guy smiles politely and also gets closer to Luca, stretching his hand. He’s watching he lips when he says, “Filippo”.

 _Filippo_ – he repeats in his head. He’s not good with names, so he repeats it again – _Filippo_. He’s so entranced by the way the hand that’s not stretching Luca’s cover the back of his hand, a sign of confidence and affection, he almost misses Martino saying, “And that’s Elia”

He looks up again, staring at Filippo’s face, and is met with a couple of brown eyes and a gentle smile. Elia takes his right hand out of his pocket and meets Filippo’s hand halfway, painfully aware of how sweaty it is. “Hey”, he says.

“Hi”, Elia repeats, not being able to acknowledge anything else in the room, his ears buzzing, feeling the lights of the kitchen way brighter than they should be.

“You said that already”, Filippo says, laughing, and still holding his hand with his own.

Elia finally lets go of his hand, suddenly embarrassed by his own actions. “Yeah, sorry”

“What’s up with you today?”, Luca asks – literally taking another spoonful of the zabaione.

“Christmas get us all in a weird mood”, Filippo says.

He’s kind – seems kind. Elia looks up, finding Filippo’s eyes, and they both share a quiet smile that doesn’t even last for a second.

He starts hearing the boys talk about something, but he can’t engage on the conversation. He’s busy thinking about how he used to let himself look at boys freely, not even aware of what he was doing but also cutting himself some slack when he started to understand. Now that he’s supposed to feel more comfortable with himself, even if he’s not out, he catches himself looking away quickly, not staring too much – even more when it’s not just about the way a guy looks, but about the way they seem to be nice and kind. Now it means something. It would be great if he stopped shattering himself.

He snaps out of his own little world when Luchino announces he really needs to go to the bathroom - and Gio, for some reason, decides to go with him.

“Remember it’s _my_ bathroom!”, Martino shouts after them.

They all laugh and there’s a quiet moment where Elia isn’t sure where to stand. It’s not like he feels uncomfortable or out of place, but there’s this presence that keeps making him feel like he should just run away.

“Martino!”, a high-pitched voice shouts from somewhere in the living room. It’s Silvia. “Come here a minute!”

Marti rolls his eyes fondly and takes Nico’s hand, who doesn’t seem to understand why but goes along with it. So that leaves only two people in the kitchen - maybe now it’s the time to run away after all.

Elia bites the right end of his bottom lip, looking at the ground and supporting his body against the cold surface of the counter behind his back.

There was a girl in his school he used to like. She was taller than him, short brown hair, dark eyes. He never really spoke to her because he used to feel so nervous around her. At some point, the crush went away but he can still remember what it was like to be in the same room as her. Elia hasn’t felt that since then – not even in that bar with that one guy. People don’t usually make him nervous, at least not in the way he’s feeling right now.

“You look… Familiar, I just can’t guess where I’ve seen you before”

Elia looks up and for the first time in what feels like hours he manages to hold on to Filippo’s stare. He licks his lips and is more than aware of the pounding in his chest, “Yeah… Yeah, same”. He really needs to get it together – what happened to the ‘hello is just the first step’?

“Where do you know Martino from?”, Elia asks, pressing his lips together. It’s a good start, an easy ice breaker.

Filippo looks to the side and makes a face before answering, “It’s… Complicated”, he says, laughing. Okay, maybe not an easy ice breaker. “I’m not sure if he wants me to say where we met”

Elia frowns, “did you meet at a rave or something?”

Filippo laughs and Elia can’t help to smile. His body is long and a bit lanky, he holds his middle with his left hand and shakes his head from side to side – eyes almost closed from the pressure of the crinkles by them. Elia almost falls down, his hands slipping on the slippery counter.

Filippo stops laughing and looks him dead in the eye, “much better than that”, he says, rising his eyebrows.

Elia frowns with a smile on his face, locking his right foot behind his left ankle and looking at the boy standing just a few meters away from him. “Now I really, really want to hear that story”

Filippo laughs again but doesn’t answer, he just changes the subject, “were you at that birthday party… I think it was Ele’s friend… Federica? I’m not sure”

Elia’s eyes lit up and he almost pushes his body off the counter, “You’re Eleonora’s brother!”

“Glad to see that makes you happy”, Filippo says, smiling.

“No, I mean…”, oh, everything was just going so smoothly, “I mean, that’s why I know you, you’re her brother, you were at Federica’s birthday party”

Elia doesn’t really remember him, he’s just a blurry figure on a very fun party. He does remember seeing blonde hair moving around, hanging out with the girls.

Filippo closes his mouth and nods, copying the posture Elia was in – hands behind his back, palms resting on the opposite counter, “I remember seeing you there”

Suddenly, it feels like he knows, like he can hear the pounding on Elia’s chest, like he can feel his hands sweating, his words stumbling every time he tries to talk to him. Flippo lowers his head, looking at Elia through his eyelashes and pressing his lips together – crashing the lip ring, again. Elia starts regretting the decision of wearing a tight jumper, already feeling the sweat everywhere – from his hands to his neck. He can’t stop staring, feeling like Filippo is reading him fully, no need of words.

But the moment passes when Filippo laughs to himself, making his own body jerk, and looks to his left, focusing on something Elia isn’t able to decipher. Elia’s blood starts to boil, feeling like a kid with a tantrum – it’s suffocating.

“Is this actually that bad?”, Filippo asks, taking a spoonful of the damn zabaione.

Elia reacts immediately, almost throwing himself over the opposite counter, touching Filippo’s hand, the one holding the spoon. “No! It’s… It’s bad, it’s…”

They’re close, way too close. The only part of their bodies that are touching are his hands – well, Elia’s fingers on Filippo’s knuckles, and yet it feels like they’re touching everywhere. Elia starts asking himself if he smells nice, if he didn’t forget to put cologne on before leaving his house; if his hair looks good, if he doesn’t have bags under his eyes. Filippo looks… Wow.

“It’s… Um, it’d probably make you sick”, Elia says in almost a whisper.

Filippo looks serious, yet not uncomfortable. His pupils looks dilated up close, and Elia can no longer feel his fingertips.

“It was the zabaione, I told you!”

Elia gets away from Filippo so quickly he somehow manages to drop the bowl and stain the kitchen floor.

“Oh shit!”, Luca says at the same time Gio whispers, “Bro…”.

Elia doesn’t really hear any of that, he’s not sure he has been able to hear anything that’s happened since Filippo said “I remember seeing you”. He drops to the floor and picks up the bowl, panicking and not really knowing what to do.

“Here, let me help”, Filippo says, crouching down next to him.

“No!”, he says, locking eyes with him, only to stare at the floor again, “I can do it myself”.

The last thing he sees before hearing Luca’s laugh is a pair of blue socks leaving the kitchen.

-*-

The rest of the night passes by like a blur. Even though Martino’s house is not big, he manages not to run into Filippo again. There’s just a quick moment where he locks eyes with him while he’s dancing with his sister and the rest of the girls, Elia sitting on the couch with the boys – but he looks away when it starts to feel like a heavy and intimate moment between the two.

It’s 2:13 a.m. when Elia, Luca and Gio leave Martino’s house, having already said goodbye to Marti’s mum, who had been kind enough to go the cinema and have dinner with a friend to leave them space and time to enjoy themselves.

“Thank you bro, it was a nice night”, Gio says, hugging Martino tight by the door.

The three of them end up hugging both Martino and Nico at the same time, laughing too much and already setting an hour and place to hang out on Sunday.

When Elia gets away from the hug, he sees Filippo throwing a can in the bin next to the fridge. He was sure he had left.

There’s the sudden realization Elia might let this moment pass by forever. He starts thinking how even if they meet again, the charged connection he felt in the kitchen may be gone by the time they see each other again. There’s a part of him that just wants to leave things they way they are now, an intense stare in a friend’s kitchen, the proximity of something warm that only makes sense when it goes away. But he also starts thinking about the way Filippo didn’t move away when he touched his knuckles, about the intensity of his stare when they locked eyes.

They’re already outside when Elia touches Gio’s shoulder, “I forgot my phone, I’ll be down in a second”

He doesn’t mean to run back to Marti’s place, the stairs would make him fall – yet, when he reaches his floor, he’s absolutely breathless.

When he looks up, Nico is looking at him with a frown between his eyes and a light smile on his face. Martino and Filippo turn their heads at the same time to look at him.

Before they speak, Elia explains, “I think I forgot my phone”

“Are you sure?” Nico asks, already getting inside.

Elia panics when he finishes walking up the stairs and finds himself next to Filippo, already saying goodbye to Marti. It’s only then when the dumbness of the situation (and decision) catches up to him. What the fuck is he doing? He’s not 13 anymore, he can’t play this game, he never has and he promised himself he would never do it – even when he can feel Filippo’s eyes on him.

He touches his pockets, front and back, and pretends to find his phone, faking a laugh. “I think I’m drunk, sorry”. He’s not drunk, he’s tipsy, but he sure isn’t drunk. Not with alcohol, at least.

Nico comes back and touches Martino’s back, resting the palm of his left hand there, making Martino smile while looking at him, “Christmas has got to you, huh?”

“Yeah… Yeah, that must be it. I better go, sorry, bye!”. He wants to run away now more than ever.

“I’m leaving, too. Goodnight, love birds”

When Elia hears Martino’s door close, he also hears something else behind his back, “wait up”

He turns his head around and his whole body stops working when he sees Filippo running down the stairs, catching up on the less than ten steps that were keeping them apart.

When Filippo stands on the same step he’s on, Elia expects him to start talking, to say something – instead, he stands here, his shoulder almost touching his, looks at him, presses his lips together and keeps on walking down the stairs.

Elia feels like his head is about to explode. He wants to shout, to scream what the hell is happening and get rid of the constant twitching and turn happening in his stomach since the moment Filippo handed him the bow. Instead, he stands there and closes his eyes for barely a second – the moment he opens them, Filippo turns around to start walking down the new set of stairs and Elia could swear he sees a light smile on his face.

They meet at the end of the stairs, next to the door that leads outside of the building. Filippo just stands there, not blocking the way but also not really letting Elia get out smoothly.

“Um… Gio and Luca are waiting for me outside”, he bumbles, looking through the pieces of glass in the door.

Silence. Elia dares to look up at Filippo, who’s now standing face to face. There’s a quick moment where he thinks he’s going to get closer and kiss him.

It doesn’t happen. “It was nice to meet you”, Filippo says, raising his hand and asking for a handshake Elia isn’t too keen on. He still does it, nodding, unable to say anything.

“Hey”

Elia looks up and Filippo’s smirk turns his whole body into jelly.

His hand is gone when he says, “I’ll be seeing you”. Elia swallows and isn’t able to add anything before Filippo opens the door and leaves him behind.

The lights switch off and he’s alone feeling something similar to what he felt in that bathroom stall months ago – only this time, there’s hope.

**Author's Note:**

> After probably reading every single Elippo fic, I'm aware this is a weird characterization of Elia - but my hc says he gets nervous when he really likes someone. Hope that didn't throw you off.
> 
> Thank you for reading, it means a lot. x


End file.
